Publishing poetry in translation in Slovakia 2013–2023

Rok, strany: 2024, 86 - 107

Poetry’s peripheral position in translation affects the book market by leaving its production to small and non-profit presses that compensate for their economic loss with state and cultural subsidies. This has been the reality in Slovakia during the last decade (2013–2023), with most poetry translations published by small semi-professional presses headed by single managers who, in most cases, happen to be authors, poets, and poetry translators themselves. In the period under review, 158 poetry translations were published by 24 presses, four of which published 88 of the collections (55.7%). The most prolific publishers include three presses run by poets – FACE (run by Ján Gavura), Skalná ruža (Juraj Kuniak), and Modrý Peter (Peter Milčák) – while the fourth press is Vydavateľstvo Spolku slovenských spisovateľov (VSSS), the publishing house of the Slovak Writers’ Society. Each press has a specific policy of selection for publishing, with the diversity of poets being one of the main criteria, and translators’ input being another. Unlike other genres of translation, the English language is not as dominant in the portfolio of the four most prolific presses, followed by Serbian and Polish. A semi-peripheral language position is held by Spanish, German, Hungarian, Norwegian, and Slovenian, but there are also translations from other 13 languages. This work was supported by VEGA 1/0666/22 “Slovak Literary Culture After 1989 (Dictionary of Terms, Participants and Institutions)”.

ISO 690:

Gavura, J. 2024. Publishing poetry in translation in Slovakia 2013–2023. In World Literature Studies, vol. 16, no.3, pp. 86-107. 1337-9275. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/WLS.2024.16.3.7

APA:

Gavura, J. (2024). Publishing poetry in translation in Slovakia 2013–2023. World Literature Studies, 16(3), 86-107. 1337-9275. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31577/WLS.2024.16.3.7

Vydavateľ: Ústav svetovej literatúry SAV, v. v. i.